Keeping snails as a hobby

Since some 20 years I keep and breed several species of snails. Maybe a strange hobby, but snails are fascinating animals. It all started when my parents decided to dig a pond in our garden. Friends provided us with plants and with the plants came some snails. From that time on my parents could find me at the pond. Soon I started breeding them in a aquarium. Several years later I bought some ramshorn snails in a shop only to find out later it where applesnails (marisa cornuarietis). Since then the aquaria and terraria only take up more room.

At the moment I still have a lot freshwaterspecies allthough I want to decrease the number of species in the next year or so. The landsnails are mainly achatina-species but I plan to expand my number of smaller species. Some 35 species can be found in my small 'zoo'.

Breeding snails isn't so difficult (allthought some species are harder or impossible to breed) so I want to keep them in a responsible way. What can someone do with 200 young snails who, when grown up, are 15 cm long? It's impossble to keep. Therefore I decided a long time ago to only hatch a small number. This takes time because a daily check is needed, it's not enough to throw in some food.

As I live in Belgium, most of my website is in dutch. However, if you have a question don't hesitate to contact me in English.